Nursing home evictions

Evictions are no longer just for tenants who do not pay rent or violate noise rules.  Instead, a nursing homes are evicting residents, especially those who have lived at the home for a long time, in the hopes of bringing in more lucrative short-term residents.

The following excerpts are from Theo Francis, To Be Old, Frail And Evicted: Patients at Risk, Wall St. J., Aug. 7, 2008, at D1:

Across the country, nursing homes are forcing out frail and ill residents. While federal law permits nursing-home evictions in some circumstances, state officials and patient advocates say facilities often go too far, seeking to evict those who are merely inconvenient or too costly. Residents with dementia or demanding families are among the most vulnerable, particularly if * * * they depend on Medicaid to pay their bills, the officials and advocates say.

Those on Medicaid bring facilities as little as half what they can get from residents who pay out of pocket, with private health insurance or through Medicare, the federal-state health program for the elderly.

No one counts evictions nationwide. But formal complaints about nursing-home discharge practices have doubled over a decade, to 8,500 nationally in 2006, making it the second-biggest category tracked by the federal Administration on Aging, trailing only complaints about unanswered calls for assistance. * * *

Nursing homes rarely roll evicted residents out to the curb. Instead, they transfer them to another nursing home or send them to a hospital or psychiatric facility for treatment and observation, and then refuse to take them back, a practice hospital social-workers sometimes call “nursing-home dumps.” * * *

Even an orderly eviction can carry grave risks for the old and ill. Studies suggest “transfer trauma,” or relocation-stress syndrome, can spur depression and weight loss and increase the risk of falls.

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.